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Daily Mirror
21-07-2025
- Business
- Daily Mirror
Large apple tree that will produce fruit in its first season plummets from £35 to £15
Enjoy freshly grown apples from the comfort of your own garden with this large fruit tree that's currently up for grabs for less than half its ordinary price thanks to this sale Green-thumbed shoppers keen to start growing their own fruit can't go wrong with a traditional apple tree, which is set to yield masses of sweet and crisp fruit as early as its first growing season. But if you're worried a tree like this may come with a hefty price tag, look no further, as this Gardening Express offer has slashed it from its ordinary price of £34.97 to £14.97. Currently available for £20 less, this specially bred Apple Tree variety is supplied as an already large and well-established plant, at approximately 3-year-old trees in a 5-litre container. Ready to start fruiting readily within the first year or so after planting, this apple tree is naturally tough, hardy, with great fruit quality and disease resistance, ensuring it's at home in a UK garden or on a patio as it's sure to withstand the ever-changing weather through season after season. An ideal choice for novices or adept gardeners, this apple tree is very easy to grow and is a slow-growing variety that usually needs no pruning or maintenance. These apple trees are perfectly happy in large patio planters on terraces or balconies or planted in the open garden. They will eventually reach an eventual height of around 150cm. Producing medium-sized fruit, this tree offers round to slightly flattened apples that have a beautiful green-yellow colour when ripe. It is extremely juicy and very firm, with a sweet flavour that is sweeter than the well-known Golden Delicious. Typically ready to harvest in early September, the fruit can be left on the tree longer to develop its distinctive flavour.
The Hindu
19-07-2025
- Climate
- The Hindu
The summer of '25
Serpentine macadamised roads cut through apple orchards spread over 26,231 hectares of land in the Shopian district in south Kashmir. The famous apple varieties of Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, and Ambri are at an advanced stage of maturity. They will be harvested in August. This year's extreme weather conditions, however, have posed a rare challenge to farmers in Kashmir, as the Valley is in the throes of a heat spell that is causing rivers and their tributaries to thin down. Bashir Dar, 62, an orchardist wearing a thin cotton shirt and loose trousers, has a towel on his shoulders to wipe the sweat away. Unused to this sort of heat, he and his college-going children set out at first light to tend their orchards in Narapora, in Shopian, 3 kilometres away from home. Erratic showers in the first week of July failed to lift the mood of orchardists grappling with multiple issues, including apple trees getting sunburn, fast multiplication of scab infection, and setting in of deformities in their apple produce. 'Apple produce faced the first phase of deformity in April this year when an unprecedented hailstorm wounded trees badly and hit the blossom too. Now this dry spell and the heatwave are threatening the size and colour of fruit,' says Dar. Usually, the fruit turns deep red and green. At 37.4 degrees Celsius, Kashmir logged the third-highest July temperature since 1946 and the highest since 1953. This was also the hottest June since 1978, with Srinagar in central Kashmir recording 34.6°C, Kupwara in north Kashmir logging 35.9 degrees Celsius, and Kokernag in south Kashmir registering 34 degrees Celsius. Most days of June, the maximum day temperature was between four to seven degrees above normal. The Division of Agrometeorology at Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology-Kashmir (SKUAST-K) has been issuing weekly advisories to farmers in Kashmir to help them tide through the period. One advisory has asked orchardists to paint apple trees white, to reflect the sun. 'Use mulch for moisture conservation and keep a watch for scab and mites as high temperatures may trigger an outbreak,' says another week's advisory. Though Dar has followed the advice and has started to paint the apple tree trunks white, he is worried about the rest of the season. Apples thrive in temperatures below 33°Celsius. Dar has 3 acres of land, with each holding about 1,000 trees. 'We get 10 to 15 kg per tree. I am not sure if we will get the same produce this year,' he says. Kashmir produced 20.56 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of apples in 2024-25, accounting for over 73% of India's total production. 'Apple varieties need 1,000 to 1,500 chilling hours (temperature exposure of below 7°C in winter). A prolonged summer and shrinking winter have reduced the chilling hours,' says Lateef Ahmad, a scientist at the Division of Agrometeorology, SKUAST-K. Of the 2.14 lakh hectares of horticulture land, 1.45 lakh hectares are under apple cultivation in Kashmir. Over 3.5 lakh farmers depend on the produce. It's not just apples; the rice crop, too, is suffering in unprecedented temperatures. Fish farming is also bearing the brunt of the heat. Over 800 people have set up their own trout fish units in Kashmir. 'With streams running low and many tributaries drying up this summer, the raceways where fish are multiplied have also come under stress,' Aqib Khan, a farmer from Kokernag, says. In 2024, J&K's fish production hit a record 28,000 metric tonnes. Kashmir's weather drift Mukhtar Ahmad, Director, Meteorological Department (MeT), Srinagar, warns that another spell of hot and humid weather in Kashmir will set in again from July 11. He says, 'Extended dry spells, with an overall increase in average temperature, resulted in high day and night temperatures in Kashmir in June.' He adds that overcast conditions do not allow the temperature to fall. According to the MeT, a heat wave is declared in a place when the departure is 4.5 degrees Celsius to 6.4 degrees Celsius above normal; a severe heat wave is a departure from normal by over 6.4 degrees Celsius. Kashmir saw both a heat wave and a severe heat wave in June. Many scientists call this year's weather pattern an alarm bell that needs the attention of policymakers to chart the future course of the Valley. Kashmir's temperate weather pattern has generally seen spells of hot weather followed by rain that keeps the day temperature around 30 degrees Celsius. The pattern has seen a change in the past few years, and Dr. Ahmad says the temperature has been steadily rising by 1-1.5 degrees Celsius. 'We are alarmingly shifting from a temperate zone to sub-tropical weather conditions, mimicking the weather of Jammu. It's too early to predict how the weather pattern will play out in the future, but the shift is worrying,' says Mohammad Muslim, an assistant professor at the Department of Environmental Science, University of Kashmir. Particularly concerning are the night temperatures. Srinagar recorded a night temperature of 24.5 degrees Celsius on July 5, which is a departure from the norm of 18.2 degrees Celsius. Pahalgam, a hilly area, saw a 7.6 degrees Celsius rise, recording 20 degrees Celsius on the night of July 5. 'A night temperature hovering around 21-24 degrees Celsius is typical of a tropical climate. The change in the pattern of the Land Use Land Cover (LULC) and the high emissivity from the growing built-up areas, and shrinking green spaces are contributing factors,' says Muslim. Srinagar's minimum temperature for June traditionally has been less than 18 degrees Celsius. Srinagar's drift, more evident than in other parts of the Valley, towards sub-tropical weather conditions is being attributed to fast urbanisation. From 34.53 square kilometres in 2000, Srinagar spread to 60.63 sq. km in 2020, according to SKUAST research data. It said that the area of water bodies was 7.48% in 2000 and was reduced to 5.58% in 2020. Similarly, the extent of vegetation in the city came down from 43.87 sq. km in 2000 to 26.23 sq. km by 2020. From 1.02 sq. km of dense forests in 2000, the city forest reduced to 0.38 sq. km by 2020. Farming's bleak future South Kashmir's Anantnag district is fed by the Kolahoi glacier in summer, a source of the Lidder river that flows into the Jhelum. Daddu canal, which feeds the paddy fields of Dadu, Chek Daddu, Panjpora, and Chek Panjpora, villages in Bijbhera tehsil, saw portions dry up in June. It fuelled rare street protests by farmers. 'Most farmers would depend on this canal,' says Najmu Saqib, a People's Democratic Party (PDP) leader and an environmental activist. While farmers in many other States in India are giving up their traditional occupations and getting government jobs for fixed incomes, that was never the case in Kashmir, he says. There were times farmers would request government officials to reduce the water flow at the source. 'This year, the canal has turned into a desert. People are reeling under drought-like conditions, even impacting their livestock. Many have lost cattle due to a lack of water,' adds Saqib. In the face of street protests, the authorities decided to release water in a phased manner, but there was a whole week when the fields were not watered. Protests over water scarcity are being reported from across the length and breadth of the Valley this summer. Women raised anti-government slogans in Central Kashmir's Budgam and Srinagar, and north Kashmir's Baramulla. Orchardists and farmers in Baramulla's Kreeri and Wagoora lodged their protests against the decrease in water discharge to their fields. Ferozepur nallah, just 5 km from the snow-covered peaks of Gulmarg, once irrigated over 8,750 acres of agricultural land through nine channels. 'This year, it has been overexploited. The irrigation water is being diverted and sucked upstream to supply drinking water, leaving us dry downstream,' says Hassan Wani, a resident of Pattan. The areas affected include Dargam, Tilgam, and Nehalpora, among others. 'Fertile paddy lands in Dargam and surrounding villages are not getting the required water for paddy,' says Wani. He says hundreds of local farmers have been forced to abandon their rice fields due to this irrigation water crisis. 'Many have shifted to less water-intensive crops like apples, out of compulsion,' he adds. The water crisis is likely to hit over 8,375 acres of agricultural land in the region. 'The livelihood of 4 lakh people on this land is impacted. It's not just environmental mismanagement, but an economic disaster,' says Wani. 'Usually, water bodies go dry in winter, and there's plenty in summer because of the melting of snow,' explains Ahmad. About a decade ago, Kashmir would get 70-80% of its precipitation in the form of snow between November and February. 'The snow would replenish glaciers and stay strong till summer. Now, we get precipitation in the form of rain in winter, depleting snow cover on the mountains around the Valley,' he says. Ecological and economic damage Javed Rana, Minister for Public Health Engineering (PHE), Irrigation and Flood Control, says, 'Teams are monitoring canal levels continuously, and efforts are being made to regulate flows and clear silt and obstructions to optimise available water.' However, the Environmental Policy Group (EPG), a non-governmental organisation, accuses the department of 'abrupt and unscientific release of water from the Hokersar Wetland' in north Kashmir's Baramulla district. 'This action has caused the water level, usually maintained at 4 to 5 feet, to drop sharply, leading to the drying up of vast portions of the wetland and inflicting severe ecological damage,' says Faiz Ahmad Bakshi, Convener of the EPG. The immediate consequence of this is a threat to nearly 10,000 breeding birds currently in the wetland. Many of them are newly hatched and lack the ability to fly or migrate to safer habitats. With the wetland drained, these birds now face death by exposure and starvation, marking a distressing ecological crisis. The EPG alleges that water was released to benefit 'encroachers who have illegally cultivated paddy in large parts of the Hokersar Wetland'. Bakshi says, 'Wetlands like Hokersar are not only biodiversity hotspots, but also natural water reservoirs that regulate flow, mitigate floods, and sustain communities through responsible harvesting of nadru (lotus stem), water chestnuts, and other aquatic produce.' He seeks the intervention of J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah. National Conference leader Nasir Aslam Wani, and the government spokesperson and adviser to the CM, says Abdullah did assess the situation. 'We faced depletion in groundwater in June. We have to devise a mechanism to harvest rainwater for irrigation. Thankfully, we had a few spells of rain, and there is no serious damage reported to crops.' He says the government is looking at old models of water reservoirs and is seeking expert advice for a plan for the future. A study was conducted by Shakil Ahmad Romshoo, a renowned climatologist and Vice-Chancellor of the Islamic University of Science and Technology. 'The Kolahoi glacier has shrunk by 2.81 square km in the last 51 years, losing an ice volume of 0.30 cubic km. The temperatures are predicted to increase almost 10 times more than those observed during the Last Glacial Maximum (over a period of 20,000 years). The future temperature is predicted to rise between 0.18 degrees Celsius and 0.61 degrees Celsius per decade,' the study warns. Another change in weather patterns is the growing contribution of the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) to annual precipitation. Kashmir receives precipitation of 71.54% from October to May, and the remaining 28.46% of rainfall between June and September. According to MeT data, the ISM's contribution to total rainfall has increased from 23.95% in the 1980-90 period to 30.49% in 2010-2017. 'Monsoon rains bring torrential downpours, which are not steady enough to allow the surface to absorb water for a longer period and prove fruitful for crops,' says Ahmad. The extent to which changing weather patterns are impacting Kashmir is also gauged from people's gardens. 'Most flower saplings like pansy and gazania dried up this year,' says Rashid Khan, a resident of Lal Bazaar in Srinagar. 'People this year stopped buying mid-summer saplings like zinnias because of the heatwave,' says Akhtar Mir, a nursery owner from Srinagar's Foreshore area. Edited by Sunalini Mathew
Daily Mirror
17-07-2025
- General
- Daily Mirror
Create an ‘ideal orchard' in gardens or patios as this 5-piece fruit tree set drops by £35
Green-thumbed shoppers enjoy homegrown fruit for less this summer as a 5-piece mini-orchard tree c collection is axed by a whopping £35 in a flash sale Whether you're a gardening expert or a novice beginner, there's no reason why you can't create your own orchard in your backyard or on your patio. If you've been yearning for fresh, homegrown fruit during the summer months, there's no need to worry about your experience or your budget, as this Fruit Tree Collection at Thompson & Morgan comes to the rescue. This set includes five covetable fruit trees: apples, pears, cherries, and plums. Thanks to this special offer, it is also budget-friendly at £49.99, down from £84.95. Perfect for keeping in pots on your patio or decking, or for planting straight into your garden, this mini fruit tree set is a great, wallet-friendly way to start creating your own little orchard that's set to keep your fruit bowl full for seasons to come. These patio fruit trees have been specifically chosen for their dwarf habit, which makes them ideal for growing in large containers, regardless of what space is available. The 5-piece set includes a Golden Delicious apple tree, an easy-to-grow variety that produces masses of attractive golden-green apples that store well over a long period after harvesting, making them great for use in cooking or eating cold. This gala tree is another apple tree in the collection. It is a reliable cultivar that produces attractive, red-flowered fruits that boast a surprisingly sweet flavour when eaten straight from the tree or used to make a delicious juicing apple. The bundle also includes the best-known of all pear trees, the Conference, which produces excellent fruit that can be enjoyed as a dessert pear but also tastes exceptional when cooked. The long, bell-shaped fruits with firm flesh can be eaten hard or fully ripe, and they have a smooth, juicy flavour. The collection is also stocked with a self-fertile Black Amber plum tree, which promises to yield plenty of rounded, firm purple fruits with a deliciously juicy texture. The last tree in the set is this self-fertile Sylvia cherry tree, a dwarf cherry tree that is sure to be an ideal plant for the patio, where it makes a great focal point in spring as pale pink cherry blossom cloaks the branches. This set is available for the reduced price of £49.99 at Thompson & Morgan, Dobies, or Suttons, or you can find a similar set on Amazon for the slightly lower price of £39.99. Raking in plenty of reviews, one 5-star rater beams about this set, writing: "Arrived very fast and well packed in first class condition, planted out and are growing away very happily." A third chimes in: "Usual excellent condition of plants securely and safely packaged. Ideal mini orchard for limited space." While this shopper shares: "Superbly packaged really healthy looking plants."
National Geographic
17-06-2025
- Science
- National Geographic
Use this ancient technique to remember (almost) anything
In Orlando, Florida, a dozen seniors gather in a YMCA twice a week. Some push walkers, others roll in on wheelchairs. After some light exercise and corny jokes, they get down to the real workout—flexing their memory muscles. Most are battling early-stage dementia, hoping to hold onto their memories a little longer. They're learning an ancient technique called the method of loci, which transforms any familiar space into a storage system for new information. Want to remember your grocery list? Link milk to your sister's senior photo in the living room—visually, and in a way that feels almost absurd. Maybe imagine it pouring out of her nose? Link apples to the window—a volley of Golden Delicious smashing through the pane. The Roman orator Cicero used the same method to memorize speeches two millennia ago. Today's competitive 'memory athletes' use it to cram thousands of data points into their brains. And now the ancient technique is helping people in surprising new ways —slowing cognitive decline, treating depression and PTSD, even aiding recovery from traumatic brain injury. As researchers are only just now discovering, this tool works in startlingly complementary ways with how our brains naturally function. The palace of the mind At the USA Memory Championship, seemingly ordinary people show off extraordinary recall. Competitors memorize hundreds of random words, dozens of strangers' life histories, and the order of shuffled card decks—all at lightning speed. These are the kinds of folks who might rattle off a thousand digits of pi without breaking a sweat. They all use variations on the method of loci, also known as the 'memory palace' or 'Roman room' method. The basics are straightforward: Make a mental map of a familiar place, then create associations between items and specific locations along a route. But is it easy? Not necessarily. The trick is using your imagination to make those mental connections memorable—the weirder, more vivid, and more outrageous, the better. Legend credits the method's invention to the ancient Greek poet Simonides of Ceos, who escaped a collapsing building in the fifth century B.C.E. As victims were pulled from rubble, Simonides identified them by remembering where each had sat around a banquet table. But indigenous cultures worldwide tapped into similar techniques long before. Native American pilgrimage trails, Australian Aboriginal songlines, and Pacific Islanders' ceremonial roads all follow a similar pattern: Elders would sing, dance, or tell stories at specific locations, making information stick by pairing information with location and context. 'It's shocking to me that this is so understudied when this was the dominant form of information storage for literally all of civilization, until the printing press,' says MIT neuroscientist Robert Ajemian, who has studied how the brain uses the method of loci. The event finalists are given instructions during the 2023 USA Memory Championship at Full Sail University, Winter Park, Florida. Photograph by Phanindra Pavuluri Why the memory palace works Neuroscience is catching up to what ancient cultures seemed to know instinctively. The method of loci taps our natural strengths in spatial navigation and visual memory—abilities that evolution has honed over thousands of generations. While almost no one is naturally great at remembering abstract information, like numbers or words, the human brain is built to remember what we've seen and where we've been. Recent brain-imaging studies show that using the method of loci creates more robust networks by linking multiple parts of the brain involved in memory: the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and visual cortex. Memory palace practitioners are literally rewiring their brains to be more efficient at memory. And after mastering the technique, they can develop elaborate systems of personalized imagery to represent, say, numbers, individual playing cards, or other hard-to-remember info. Despite their effectiveness, variations on the method of loci are neither widely taught nor widely researched, Ajemian says—much to his frustration. We've been too quick to dismiss it as a neat trick, he argues, instead of regarding it as a valuable learning tool that's sustained human knowledge for millennia. Perhaps nowhere is its potential more poignant than in the fight against dementia. New hope for aging minds For Michael Dottino, memory is the family business. His father founded the USA Memory Championship, and Michael trained businesspeople and students in memory techniques. Then the local Jewish Community Center asked him to try something new: develop a class for seniors with early-stage dementia. The Memory Institute program he created meets twice a week at the Dr. P. Phillips YMCA in Orlando. The four-hour sessions combine memory training with physical activity, social interaction, and cognitive exercises like using the method of loci. The goal, Dottino says, is to slow participants' rates of decline. Three years in, he finds the program's results encouraging. Some of the earliest participants are still showing up twice a week, keeping up the regimen. Dottino calls out one of them, Karen Vourvopoulos, who has retained all of her cognitive function. 'The class has given my mother a new lease on life,' says Matina Vourvopoulos, Karen's daughter. 'She's more energized, inspired, creative, and enthusiastic about life. I wish there was a Memory Institute for every senior in every community.' Clinical neuropsychologist Erica Weber is putting similar approaches through rigorous clinical trials. Memory programs are few and far between, she says, and patients often pay out of pocket. But if such strategies can be proven genuinely effective, insurance companies might start covering them. One current challenge, Weber says, is that the main sources of funding for rehabilitation research—the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research—are facing large cuts (and, in the latter case, outright elimination). But so far, the research looks promising. One massive study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, showed that cognitive training can help healthy older adults maintain and improve their mental skills. Though there's no need to wait until retirement age to put memory strategies like the method of loci to use. 'Try to practice using the strategies before you need to rely on them,' Weber advises. Think of it as a cognitive gym membership—better to start lifting mental weights before the muscle gets weak. Applications beyond aging Which is to say, seniors aren't the only ones who can benefit. Weber adapts the method of loci to help people with traumatic brain injuries—suffered in car accidents or falls, for example—to recover cognitive function. What she calls the modified Story Memory Technique breaks down memory palaces into simpler components, like transforming verbal information into mental imagery. The range of patients she works with keep expanding, including those suffering from multiple sclerosis, HIV-related cognitive impairment, and spinal cord injuries that impact brain function. Perhaps most intriguingly, mental health experts are exploring the memory palace as a therapy tool. People with depression or PTSD might create palaces filled with positive memories, mental refuges to revisit during tough times. The concept makes intuitive sense: if you can train your brain to efficiently store and retrieve any information using spatial memory, why not train it to access calm, positive states when you need them most? In our smartphone age, when we've outsourced so much memorization to Google and GPS, ancient mnemonics are reminders of what our remarkable brains can do. As MIT neuroscientist Ajemian puts it, engaging these techniques is 'fundamental cognitive exercise, in the same way that aerobics is fundamental physical exercise.' Our ancestors carried entire libraries in their heads. With a little practice, we can at least make sure to pick up the milk. This article is part of Your Memory, Rewired, a National Geographic exploration into the fuzzy, fascinating frontiers of memory science—including advice on how to make your own memory more powerful. Learn more.
Time of India
16-06-2025
- General
- Time of India
From Fuji to Honeycrisp: Here is how different types of apples got their names
Fruits play a crucial role in our daily lives. There are a variety of fruits that are present in the world that are unique in taste and also, they are highly beneficial as well. Among these fruits, apples are one of the most loved fruits that carry a lot of benefits and they also have a good taste. Beside this, there is a variety of apples that are available with different names. According to a report by Treehugger, from fuji to honeycrisp, apples come in many flavors and each of them carry a different story too. In this article, we will explore the origins of some of the most well-known varieties of apple varieties that carry different stories with them. Exploring how various apples got their names Red Delicious The Red Delicious apple got its name because of its deep red color and sweet flavor which was the first fascinating feature about it when it was first discovered. It was originally known as the 'Hawkeye' apple but was later renamed as Red Delicious as this name highlighted its bright red skin and the enjoyable taste that it carries which makes it even more appealing to the shoppers. Thus, the change in name helped in selling of these apples in even larger amounts than before. Source: Froovella Fuji The Fuji apple is named after the city of Japan named Fujisaki where it was first discovered in the late 1930s. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Buy Brass Idols - Handmade Brass Statues for Home & Gifting Luxeartisanship Buy Now Undo This variety was created by crossing two American apples which were the Red Delicious and Ralls Janet in order to produce a sweet and crisp apple that quickly gained popularity worldwide in a very short span of time. The name of these apples reflect its place of origin and directly connect it to its Japanese roots. Thus, it is highly liked by people from all around the world. Source: Wikipedia Golden Delicious The Golden Delicious apple got its name by its bright yellow-gold color and rich flavor. It was first discovered on a farm in West Virginia in the early 1900s and was originally known as the 'Mullin's Yellow Seedling.' After a period of time, the name was changed to Golden Delicious in order to make it more appealing to buyers as this name highlighted both its beautiful golden skin and delicious taste. Thus, this new name helped the apple in gaining popularity all over the world. Source: Wikipedia Granny Smith The Granny Smith apple is named after an Australian woman named Maria Ann Smith who discovered this variety of green apples in the 1860s. The story is that she found a seedling that was growing near her home and started cultivating it. The apple's bright green color and tart flavor made it unique and this name gives the apple a personal touch that shows how even the name of apples can come from the people behind their discovery. Source: Wikipedia Empire The Empire apple was developed in New York in the 1940s as a cross between the popular Red Delicious and McIntosh apples. Its name reflects the nickname of New York which is the 'Empire State' which highlights the apple's local roots. The name was chosen to emphasize the apple's strong connection to its roots. By naming it Empire, the people linked it with a sense of pride and quality which helped it to gain popularity all over the world. Source: Wikipedia Honeycrisp The Honeycrisp apple was developed by researchers in Minnesota in the 1960s. Thus, its name highlights the two of its best features which are a sweet honey-like flavor and a crisp juicy texture. Thus, honeycrisp focuses on describing the eating experience with its catchy and descriptive name that helped in making the apple an instant hit with consumers. Source: Wikipedia Also read: NASA ensures nutritional adequacy for astronauts despite limited fresh food on the ISS One step to a healthier you—join Times Health+ Yoga and feel the change
